In Honor Of Free Speech, Hannity Threatens To Sue His Media Critics

Sean Hannity continued suggesting that liberals are behind the problems at Fox News and somehow responsible for the conservative pundit who suggested he had sexually harassed her (then walked it back). Then, in the name of free speech, Hannity threatened to sic his “killer team of lawyers and investigators” on the liberals who disparagingly write about him.

Previously, I wrote about how Hannity blamed “liberal fascists” for the troubles at Fox News. I pointed out that the employees pushed out were sexually-assaulting conservatives, accused by conservatives and eventually ousted by conservative Rupert Murdoch. Furthermore, the woman who accused Hannity of sexual harassment, Debbie Schlussel, is a conservative, too. That’s not counting the allegations of racial discrimination coming from 13 (so far) employees and former employees.

But rather than consider what might be wrong with his employer, Hannity suggested it’s all liberals’ fault. Then he threw stones from his very glassy house.

From last night’s monologue (via FoxNews.com, with my emphases added):

HANNITY: In all seriousness, we are at a turning point, a huge turning point when it comes to freedom of speech in the United States of America. I for one, I refuse to sit back and let conservatives be silenced by these liberal fascists. It’s time to take a stand.

Hannity began by citing “left-wing, anti-free-speech fascists” at UC Berkeley” who successfully shut down a speech by Ann Coulter. Then he conflated that with a campaign against Donald Trump.

HANNITY: Now, the alt radical left, they love to claim they’re so tolerant and inclusive. That is just a big myth and lie, maybe the biggest in America right now. In fact, the First Amendment, freedom of speech, means nothing to these people. It’s just a text and a document they care nothing about. Their goal is simple, shut down every single conservative voice in America by any means necessary. It’s that serious.

Now, this is just one example in what we have been showing you this week. Liberal fascists are carrying out a well-orchestrated, funded smear campaign to try and take down President Trump and anybody and everybody that supports him and his policies.

In the first place, a campaign to take down Trump is nothing close to an effort to abridge free speech. Hannity should know. He spent years trying to smearandtakedown President Obama.

Then Hannity threw the Schlussel situation into the stew:

HANNITY: And as I have explained, I’ve also become the target of these slanderous attacks, and in my opinion, what happened last Friday, this was designed to be a kill shot. In other words, to ruin my career, shut me down once and for all. Literally, I think they had the crosshairs at my head and my heart. They wanted to destroy me, ruin my career, get me off the air once and for all.

Hannity never explained how he thinks Schlussel is working with liberals, other than the fact that liberals reported on her accusations:

HANNITY: Now, on Friday, just two days after Bill O’Reilly parted ways with the Fox News Channel, an individual with serious and glaring credibility issues fabricated completely untrue, ridiculous claims about me—I think going back to, like, 2003, ‘04 or ‘05 -- which this person quickly recanted.

Now, instead of doing their job and fact-checking the accusations by this individual—by the way, easily proven to be false—liberal fascist journalists, lazy as they are, they saw an opportunity. “Oh, let’s get Hannity next. Let’s silence his voice.”

Now, these are just two of the headlines of the money that were used to try and take me down. NBC News, “Sean Hannity denies right-wing blogger’s sex harassment claim.” By the way, none of them I think mentioned it was way back in the early 2000s. Raw Story—“Is Hannity next to fall? Fox guest says the anchor tried to pressure her into hotel room sex.” By the way, she didn’t even say that, just as a sidebar issue.

Now, do these headlines represent the truth? No. And so far, none of these outlets, interestingly, have updated their headlines to correct the story and tell their viewers or their readers the truth, that this is a highly questionable individual who recanted these completely false claims.

I’m pleased to note that I reported my skepticism of Schlussel’s claim in my original post and subsequently updated it with her clarification that she had not meant to imply sexual harassment.

But if Hannity feels that corrections and fact checking are so important before reporting something that might damage someone’s reputation, where was his fact-checking into Donald Trump’s birther allegations? You know, the ones that had been completely and utterly debunkedbefore Hannity repeatedly promoted them? Or when he bogusly suggested Hillary Clinton had suffered a seizure - despite medical doctors remaining unconvinced. As as I know, he never contacted, much less hosted, the AP reporter who was present with Clinton at the time and who debunked the "seizure" claim.

If Hannity ever corrected those smears, let me know because I missed it.

Meanwhile, Hannity is gaga for accountability by other people in the media, And he's threatening to come after them (maybe us):

HANNITY: Now, I have hired a killer team of lawyers and investigators, and we are laying out a war strategy that’s going to hold every media outlet that lies and smears me responsible. My lawyers are saying that these media outlets have a basic, fundamental obligation to do rudimentary fact-checking instead of just taking the word of one individual. In my case, they went for the cheap headline without even doing a simple—even a simple Google search—which would have shown that this has gone on with this woman, false charges, for years, that were proven false!

Here’s a question. Is this reckless disregard for the truth? Do these media outlets, do they have a responsibility to do any fact-checking before they repeat such hurtful allegations?

Now, in the end, I may end up suing some of these outlets because at this point, enough is enough. These attempts to destroy and silence conservative voices, it needs to stop or Fox News Channel goes away.

Your favorite talk show hosts go away. You know, they want to get rid of the Fox News Channel, the one network in the country that actually gives President Trump a fair shake. They want to destroy everybody in talk radio.

And I feel at this point, if I don’t speak up, if we don’t fight back, it will only get worse and worse, and others will fall victim to these same liberal media fascists

As I have previously written, I'm not keen on advertiser boycotts of media nor do I think Hannity is a sexual predator. But clearly there's something rotten in the state of Fox News. What does Hannity expect the public to do about it? He still hasn't said. One thing he has said: "#IStandWithBill."*

By the way, Hannity or his representatives are welcome to rebut any allegation made about him on this blog or by me anywhere else and I will publish it.

Watch Hannity’s threats below, from the April 26, 2017 Hannity.

*UPDATE: Although I originally interpreted Hannity's tweet to refer to Bill O'Reilly, I'm now pretty sure he's referring to Bill Shine. More on this point to come.

Showing 7 reactions

Conservatives like Sean think bald-face lying is their exclusive right.

How may Fox Newsies mocked Hillary’s complaint of a “vast right-wing conspiracy”? Now enter Sean diaper filling over his own. At least Hillary did have just about every right-winger in America gunning for her. Sean? He’s essentially accusing conservatives at Fox of being sleeper liberal agents.

There’s the whole ‘dish it out but can’t take it’ phenomenon. But we knew Sean was a wimp by his cowardice on making his waterboarding boast good.

While I certainly condemn racism and sexism, there’s a certain irony that blacks and women who thought they could fit in the Republican ‘big tent’ at Fox News getting taught a lesson in the intolerance of the political faith they embrace. You play with snakes, eventually you get bit.

Bill Shine must be fired because he has become useless to the Foxies. This clown should have been thrown out on the streets a year ago. Look at all the trouble under his leadership. Complete chaos. He couldn’t run a Long Island ferris wheel.

More complaints are coming down the pipeline against the Foxies, and the advertisers will be watching.